Struggle Against A Conformist Society English Literature Essay

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo ‘s Nest, Ken Kesey portrays an person ‘s battle against a conformist society. Kesey ‘s novel takes topographic point in a mental infirmary during the late 1950 ‘s. The book can be read on two degrees, on the surface it is a narrative about a adult male named McMurphy who overturns the senseless and dehumanising modus operandis of a mental ward. On another degree, the book can be read as a commentary about the conformist society of the late 1950 ‘s. First published in 1962, Kesey ‘s book bridges the spread between the Beatnik ‘s of the late 50 ‘s and the Hippies of the 60 ‘s, whose counterculture rebellion included free love and drug usage.

Ken Kesey was born in 1935 in LaJunta, Colorado. Soon after, his household moved to Oregon where he attended public school and subsequently graduated from the University Of Oregon. He pursued play and sports while in college. Kesey was a title-holder grappler and about won a topographic point on the U.S. Olympic squad. A twelvemonth after graduating, he wrote an unpublished novel, entitled “ End Of Autumn ” , about college sports. Ken Kesey married his high school sweetie, Faye Haxy, in 1956. Faye and Ken had 3 kids together. In 1958, Kesey began graduate work in originative authorship at Stanford University, where he studied with several celebrated authors. He wrote a 2nd unpublished novel, “ Zoo ” , before get downing work on One Flew Over the Cuckoo ‘s Nest in the summer of 1960. Around the same clip he started Cuckoo ‘s Nest, Kesey became a paid voluntary of many government-sponsored drug experiments at a Veteran ‘s Hospital in Menlo Park. At the infirmary he was introduced to psychoactive drugs such as LSD and Mescaline, and became a frequent user of them. He was under the influence of them during some of the clip he wrote Cuckoo ‘s Nest. His 3rd fresh enjoyed considerable critical acclamation after its 1962 publication. The fresh finally was made into a Broadway drama and an Academy Award winning film starring Jack Nicholson. The book became really popular on college campuses. Kesey himself gained extra attending when he and a group of friends entitled the “ Merry Pranksters ” began going the state to advance the new counterculture of psychedelic drugs and societal protest. The travels of Kesey and his friends were recorded in Tom Wolfe ‘s 1968 work The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. During his travels, Kesey was arrested in 1965 for drug ownership and finally spent about five months in gaol. After gaol he was moved to the San Mateo County Sheriff ‘s Honor Camp. He was released in 1967 and moved back to Oregon in 1968. Kesey gave up authorship for a period of clip, but returned to his former art. He subsequently successfully kicked his drug wont and has since disavowed experimental drug usage.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo ‘s Nest is the narrative of a few singular hebdomads in an Oregon insane refuge and the events that lead to the storyteller ‘s flight. A tall and quiet Indian, Chief Bromden, is a long-run inmate who tells the narrative of those hebdomads. His insanity stems from a paranoid belief that the authorities is seeking to command people with a device called “ The Combine ” . Chief Bromden acts as if he deaf and dense to contend control by “ The Combine ” . Chief Bromden looks back at his clip in the ward and feels that he must state of the clip and battle between Randle McMurphy and Big Nurse Ratched. Bromden begins with the twenty-four hours McMurphy is admitted to the ward. McMurphy is loud and destructive, and introduces himself as a chancing adult male who has pretended to be brainsick to acquire out of work cantonment. McMurphy introduces himself to the Chronics, lasting occupants, including Bromden, and to the Acutes, patients who still may retrieve. McMurphy instantly tries taking charge of the ward and instigates a who-is-crazier argument with Harding, an Acute who is president of the patient ‘s council. Nurse Ratched knows that McMurphy is traveling to be a riotous force on the ward and Bromden Explains her reactions: “ The large nurse tends to acquire existent put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth, accurate, precision-made machine. The slightest thing messy or out of kelter or in the manner ties her into a small white knot of tight-smiled rage. She walks around with that same doll smiling crimped between her mentum and her olfactory organ and that same unagitated birr coming from her eyes, but down indoors of her she ‘s tense as steel. I know, I can experience it. And she do n’t loosen up a hair till she gets the nuisance attended to – what she calls “ adjusted to milieus ” . ” McMurphy inquiries all the patients, specifically Harding, approximately why they except her power. He bets the full ward that he can coerce Ratched to lose control in a hebdomad. Bromden recounts how McMurphy continually taunts the nurse and her attenders. A group of members including McMurphy, addition entree to an old hydropathy room to get away the really loud music in the twenty-four hours room. McMurphy the group that he can raise a concrete console off of its base and through a window to get away. McMurphy purposefully loses this stake, but one hebdomad after the original stake he succeeds in turning the full ward against Nurse Ratched in a ballot to watch the universe series on the Television. Chief Bromden is the decisive ballot in this affair, as they needed a bulk of the ward to vote. Nurse Ratched garbages to turn on the telecasting, but the ward ignores her as they all sit around the telecasting. While sitting at that place, McMurphy has an thought, he begins naming out dramas of the game as if he was an announcer on telecasting. The ward becomes full of shouting and heartening as the nurse shrieks hysterically. Nurse Ratched decides to wait until McMurphy realizes his destiny is in her custodies. During this clip, Bromden grows stronger from McMurphy ‘s indefatigable illustration. Bromden avoids his medicine and begins to hallucinate less. The other patients follow suit, going boisterous and argumentative. A few yearss subsequently in the swimming pool, a lifesaver explains to McMurphy the danger of going for good committed, which seems to stop McMurphy ‘s fractiousness.